February 22, 2009

The Superpowers That Time Forgot (Part 7)

The NOT So Familiar Abilities of SUPERMAN!

When I began my survey of Superman's more obscure, offbeat and (mercifully) forgotten powers, I felt it was best to confine the coverage to the comic books themselves and ignore the various radio, TV, and movie adaptations...long known for their nonsensical additions and alterations. However, there's one Hollywood superpower that's so stupendously insane...so awesomely off-the-rocker, I just had to make an exception.

It's long been an accepted fact that Superman IV: The Quest for Peace(1986) is the not only the worst modern-era Superman film, but possibly one of the worst films to ever be projected onto a movie screen. But that's not all. Within this stinky pile of lazy filmmaking is a sequence that, in my opinion, is the absolute low point of Superman's entire 70-year history. A strong charge...but I've got video proof!

During the laughable, low-wattage battle between Superman and a super-powered Chippendale dancer named Nuclear Man, their clash takes them to the Great Wall of China. Nuclear Man (over-actor Mark Pillow) proceeds to blast the famous wall to pieces with his solar-ray zapping powers before slowly being hoisted away on a flying harness. Cue the badly-composited Superman, who, after catching a falling tourist, sets about repairing the damage to the wall. Does he use his legendary super-speed to rebuild the wall? Nope...not enough money in the budget...so he resorts to Plan B: the heretofore unknown power of Rebuild Great Wall of China Vision! Check it out (if you dare):

It's like an even lazier version of the oddball telekinetic power the Phantom Zone criminals of Superman II shot from their hands. But they were at least willing to raise their arms to use the power...Wall of China Vision Superman just glances around like someone looking for his car in a parking lot...made even worse by Christopher Reeve's rather obvious boredom.

Comments

They couldn't have just put in some crappy red-and-blue blur to suggest the notion of "Superman rebuilding the wall with super-speed?"

Superman IV is actually a rather fascinating movie. (Not a *good* movie, not by any stretch of the imagination, mind.) Listen to the DVD commentary from one of the screenwriters, it's interesting.

A particularly fascinating oddball nugget is that Mark Pillow showed up for the movie's premiere in full costume... WITHOUT the knowledge or approval of anyone else involved with the movie!

I wonder if that incident inspired the bit of business in LAST ACTION HERO where the actor who plays Jack Slater's villain (apparently - he's not, in fact, an actor...) shows up at the movie premiere in full costume?

Not having seen it myself, I'm surprised to see a negative comment about Dark Knight. I usually hear how awesome it supposedly was and that Heath Ledger should win every award possible for it.

As for Superman 4, the saddest part is, done right, Nuclear Man could have been an interesting villain. However, it's a second rate anti-nuke movie that struggles from lacking in sense and believability. (And let me tell you, I can suspend my disbelief with the best of 7-year olds, which is remarkable at 35.) Besides, we all know the real "Nuclear Man" in the DCU is Firestorm. (At least the original; don't know about the new guy.)

If there had been more movies in this vein, we surely would have discovered that Supes had a different vision for repairing every national monument. Reassemble the Taj Mahal Vision; Polish the Dome of the Rock Vision; Clear the Cobwebs from Macchu Picchu Vision, and so on.

Let us not forget that "Superman IV" was directed by Sidney J. Furie, who also directed the dreadful 1976 pseudo-biopic "Gable & Lombard." And of course, as we all know, Superman's alter ego Clark Kent was named for Clark Gable (and Kent Taylor, a now-obscure 1930s actor who also made a film with Carole Lombard -- though unlike Clark, he never married her).